Residents’ attitudes toward the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai prior to and during the event

Abstract

This paper examines residents’ attitudes to a major non-sport-related mega event, the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Resident attitudes research can ascertain how best to accommodate host community views, a key issue in developing sustainable tourism strategies. The paper breaks new ground by examining attitudes both before and during the event, revealing considerable fluidity in attitudes, and it examines residents’ attitudes in China, reflecting the importance of non-western cultural and political systems on attitude development. The paper contributes to longitudinal research, an area where little research is available. Two studies were conducted before and during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo using the same survey instrument. It is based on a representative sample of residents of Shanghai who were asked about their attitudes to Expo 2010. Results indicate that residents on the whole strongly supported (77.9%) or supported (12.7%) the event with all the average scores of the attitude items higher than 5 (on a 1–7 scale). Some negative impacts were identified such as increased prices, traffic problems, crowding and congestion. Residents were classified into three groups in the pre-event survey (whole embracer, ambivalent embracer and neutralist), according to their level of support, and two groups for the survey during the event.

居民对2010上海世博会前和会中的态度

该文章探讨了居民对一个非体育相关的大型会事，2010年上海世博会，的态度。居民态度研究能查明如何能最好地考虑接待地社区的看法，这是发展可持续性旅游战略的重要因素。该文章通过探讨会前会中的态度，揭示态度中大量的流动性来提出新见解，另外文章讨论了中国居民的态度，来反映非西方文化和政治系统对态度发展的重要性。该文章贡献于纵向研究，这方面是有很少相关文献研究的。在2010年上海世博会前和会中使用相同的调查工具进行了两次调查。这是建立在被问及对2010世博的态度的一个有代表性的上海居民取样群体。结论显示总体上来说是强烈支持（77.9%）或支持（12.9%）该会事的，并且所有的有关态度的检测项目平均分都高过5（在1-7的测量比例上）。一些负面的影响被指出，例如价格上涨，交通问题，拥挤和堵塞。根据他们支持的水平和会中的两组调查，居民在会前调查中被分为三大类：完全的支持者，矛盾的支持者和中立者。

Keywords:

• resident attitudes
• mega-event
• tourism impact
• 2010 Shanghai World Expo

关键词:

• 居民态度
• 旅游影响
• 接待方

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the referees for their helpful comments. Special thanks to the Co-Editor Prof. Bernard Lane for his excellent and timely feedback and assistance. The study was supported by a grant from National Science Foundation of China (No. 41101136).